Hollywood's Thinnest Stars Insist, "I'm Not Anorexic."
That's on the cover of In Touch Weekly this week , and it's illustrated by a triptych of Angelina Jolie, Keira Knightly and Lindsay Lohan looking: healthily slim, like a zipper turned sideways and like a young Anne-Margaret, in that order. A couple of weeks back, Us Magazine ran a piece on the "scary skinniness" of the new 90210 girls. One of them (Jessica Stroup) is Knightly-esqe, while the other two (Shanae Grimes and AnnaLynne McCord) just look like your garden variety skinny celebrities. Which is to say, extremely skinny. But not "scary skinny". There IS a difference. But what is it?
It seems that the media's never met a skinny starlet that it didn't accuse of having an eating disorder. And frankly, I would have to assume that most women above five foot four inches tall who are maintaining their weight at or around 100 pounds are probably working some level of severe calorie restriction, if not "rocking" a full-blown eating disorder. Of course, no one would ever admit that. And I don't expect them to do so.
And yet...at the same time, when a female celebrity puts on weight, they also like to pick on celebrities who have put on weight. This week's People carries a story about how Cheryl Burke of Dancing With The Stars is dealing with criticism over her having gained a few (ten, fifteen maybe?) pounds on her summer vacation. And who could forget the way the media portrayed Jennifer Love Hewitt as having let herself go when she gained a few over her series hiatus. If you have any doubt about the slant the media took on J. Love's having gone up to a size 4 (seriously, not a six? Ok, whatever!), then consider the before and after photos that followed in the wake up her having gone back down to a size zero (two? Four? Whatever!). Is there any need to point out the implication that goes along with this, namely that she looks so much better now that she's lost the excess poundage?
So, how to reconcile the horror over alleged anorexia with the disgust over the occasional tipping of the scales?
My theory is that the media (and by the media, I mean all of us because that is whom the media caters to), wants celebrities to be "attainably perfect". In other words, skinny is good, as long as its attainment doesn't seem to require the implantation of a gastric band into Nicole Richie's abdomen or not eating anything that doesn't dissolve in the mouth, as it has been said of Keira Knightley's eating restrictions. Skinny is good as long as it doesn't seem totally out of the realm of ordinary human possibility. Skinny is good as long as we could picture ourselves in those jeans or that dress. But when bones that we didn't know existed protrude from a celebrity, we feel resentment. We call it scary and sick. The line is thin, so to speak, between good skinny and bad skinny.
As for weight gain in celebrities, it's all good if it makes the celebrity seem more "attainably perfect". Thus, Nicole Richie got kudos for going from 85 pounds to 100. And Angelina was praised for her healthy pregnancy weight gain. But when weight gain takes a celebrity body from "attainably perfect" to simply "attainable" - as in the case of Jennifer Love Hewitt and Cheryl Burke - we criticize and mock them. Think about this: How much did we like Nicole Richie when she was the "chubbier" girl on The Simple Life? How much better did we like her when she dieted down to "attainably perfect" ...but before she dropped to "pin thin"?
The message is not nearly as confusing as we would like to think it. And it isn't a message we need to apply to ourselves and our bodies unless we're looking for a career in Hollywood. It is a message to starlets, and should be understood as part of the job description: Be perfect enough that you'll inspire awe, and never ever let down your guard.
